Autumn Whispers

floor and forgotten to put it back. After settling her in with her toys, I glanced at the clock.

“Time for her morning cream drink. She gets her meat for early breakfast and Hanna always prepares all her meals in advance now, so it’s easy to see when she’s been fed.” I pulled her bottle of cream out of the fridge and poured it into a bowl, then stuck it in the microwave for one minute. Maggie was learning to eat solid gargoyle food, but she would still get her cream dream several times a day for another few years till she was fully weaned onto solid food.

The mixture of cream, sage, cinnamon, and sugar smelled comforting and familiar as I took the warm bowl out of the microwave and put it down into Maggie’s playpen. She eagerly began to lap it up, and I watched her.

“It’s hard to believe that someday she’ll be as big and large as the granticulars.” Maggie was so cuddly and oddly proportioned that I couldn’t imagine what she’d look like when she grew up. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woodland gargoyle, other than her.”

“We should make a trip to Thistlewyd Deep. I know there are pockets of woodland gargoyles there.” Camille patted Maggie on the head, then returned to the table. “I’m going to call Carter and see if he’s found out any more info on Lowestar Radcliffe and Gerald Hanson’s deal for the Farantino Building.”

“Sounds good, but hey, we need to buy the food to pay Ivana. She’ll be here this afternoon, expecting her meat treats, and the last thing we want to do is piss off one of the Elder Fae. I’ll stay with Maggie if you head to the store and pick up the meat. Unless you want me to go.”

“No, I’ll do it.” She grabbed her purse. “I’ll be back in a few. At least we have guards here.”

As she headed out the door, pulling her jacket on, I wandered into the living room. The relatively peaceful days of the past few months were gone, broken. I thought about turning on the TV to watch some mind-numbing trash but for once didn’t feel like it. So I put in the call to Carter. He was home, as usual.

“Carter—things are heating up with the Farantino Building. Have you found out anything more on the deal between Radcliffe and Gerald?”

I dropped into the rocking chair, propping my feet on the coffee table. Iris and Hanna both would kill me if they saw me do that but neither happened to be in the house right now.

He rifled through some papers and I heard the tapping of keys. “Yes, actually. I have it . . . right here. Okay, it looks like when the deed changed hands, it did so for the nominal sum of twenty-five dollars. Which means either Gerald didn’t need the money, or Lowestar has something on him, or perhaps both. I also did some more digging into Lowestar’s background and there is no record of him being born in India. In fact, he’s either far older than he appears or has ancestors by the same name, because the first record I can find of a Lowestar Radcliffe is . . . guess where?”

My stomach knotted. “Italy.”

“Right, he showed up right around the time that the Farantino family began to rise in power. Then he vanished again until he showed up in Seattle. The information as far as his appearance in Italy is sketchy but from what I can tell, he was labeled a “foreign supporter” of theirs. But nobody ever specified where this particular foreigner was from.”

Carter paused. “I have a bad feeling about this, Delilah. We know there’s daemonic activity attached to the building and there has been since Michael Farantino first built it. But there’s something going on there—and Grandmother Coyote is never wrong. If something big is waking up, I have a hunch that Lowestar is directly related to it.”

“More than that.” I told him about Violet and the meeting at the coffee shop. “There has to be more than a coincidence there. I can’t imagine there not being a connection.”

“Then there may be . . . Hold on . . . Let me check on something and call you back in five.” Carter signed off.

While waiting for him to call back, I wandered in to check on Maggie again. She seemed lonely, so I sat on the floor and pulled her into my lap. We cuddled for a moment, and she pushed Yobie in my face for a kiss. I hugged her, staring down into those soft gentle eyes. Her long lashes fluttered as she yawned and I realized it was time for her nap.

“Come baby, let’s put you to bed.” I carried her into her crib and she yawned again, then closed her eyes and fell asleep without a fuss, clutching Yobie. Once I was certain she was snoring up a storm, I tiptoed out of the room just in time to field Carter’s return call.

“Okay, I have some interesting news. Guess where Supernatural Matchups is headquartered?”

I groaned. “In the Farantino Building.”

“Right. And guess who was not only in charge of fielding their legal issues, but who also had stock in the company?”

A chill ran through me. “Gerald Hanson.”

“Right again.”

And then, an image from Gerald’s memory flashed through me. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, as Camille would say. I think I know something but I need to put it together. Please, don’t go anywhere. I need to think about this and call you back when I’ve sorted it out.”

“I have a lunch date, but that’s not till two o’clock, so I’ll be here till then. And you can catch me again after five.” With that, Carter signed off.

I wanted Camille to get back. We usually worked well as sounding boards for each other. As I strained my memory, the door opened and she toted in a couple big bags.

“Don’t say anything for a minute,” I told her, grabbing the bags and carrying them into the kitchen. “I know something, but I need to figure it out. Sit down while I try to find the words.”

Camille slipped off her coat and sat down at the table as I paced. Quickly, I filled her in on everything Carter and I had discussed.

“Okay, so, what’s running through my head is this: when I was in Gerald’s mind, I saw a Fae woman, in a cell. She was locked up and Gerald was thinking about how much money she would bring. In another memory, he was talking about replacing a toy and whatever it was, was expensive. What if Supernatural Matchups . . .”

“White slavery.” Camille paled. “He was selling that woman.”

“Right! What if Supernatural Matchups is a cover up for a sex slave operation? And what if they are finding their merchandise through the dating site?”

“But if he was running it, then when he died . . .”

I snapped my fingers. “But he’s not running it. I need to check something.” I jumped back on the laptop and scanned through the Supernatural Matchups site again. The dating service had been formed . . . “They started the company the same year that Gerald sold the building to Lowestar. Lowestar’s the one in charge of it. I’ll bet you anything.”

I quickly tapped out a few inquiries into the search engine and sure enough, the Washington State Secretary of State’s site gave me all the information I needed. Under the Corporations Division, I was able to find out that the president of Supernatural Matchups was, indeed, Lowestar Radcliffe. Gerald Hanson had been VP. There it was, in black and white pixels.

“Here—look at this. One guess as to what’s happened to Violet.”

“I wonder if she’s still alive.” Camille peeked over my shoulder. “But this can’t be what Grandmother Coyote was talking about with something ancient waking up. This is new, and as far as things go, yes it’s bad but it’s not the worst thing we’ve gone up against.”

As we were puzzling things through, Vanzir burst through the door. He actually looked flushed, as well as soaked through to the skin.

“Okay, here it is. I talked to Trytian—”

Camille bristled. “Fuck, just what we need. Bring him into this.”

“Listen, toots, you want information fast? You go to the person most likely to know. So I did.” He folded his arms across his chest. “You want to hear what I have to say or not?”

“Yeah, yeah, go on.” I tossed him the hand towel off the counter. “And wipe up, you’re dripping all over Hanna’s clean floor and she’ll kill you.”

“Big fucking deal.” But he quickly wiped up the water and muddy footprints he’d tracked in. “Okay, here’s the scoop. Trytian knows perfectly well who this Lowestar Radcliffe is.”